Sometime during the night, Tinkerbell’s light faded. It was a toy given to our daughter Cozette while visiting Walt Disney World back when she was four. She was admiring it clipped to a young woman’s backpack. The woman noticed, smiled and then offered it to her. As she handed our daughter the molded piece of translucent plastic, she pressed a tiny button which caused a soft green light to glow through Tink. Cozette’s eyes widened and then she threw her arms around the woman and hugged her for what seemed like forever.

Two Christmases ago, Santa Claus brought our daughters two gift certificates from a major pet store chain. They’d been asking for Guinea Pigs since the beginning of that school year – because ‘all the kids had them.’ My wife and I weren’t sure about rodents as pets, especially considering we have dogs, so we hashed it out with St. Nick – and instead of bringing the girls Pigs, he opted for gift certificates instead. So there was still time to get something else – like maybe really nice leashes for the dogs. But that wasn’t to be – and the day after Christmas we welcomed Luna and Pearl into our family. Two days later, Pearl, who was Agatha’s pet, was not eating and so we took her back to the pet store. They said that Pearl was probably going to die. We told our daughter that we’d get another, and through tears she said, “but I already fell in love with her.” Amazingly, the pet store nursed the animal back to health and until last night, it led a happy Guinea Pig life. This morning my wife discovered Pearl dead.

Today after the burial, I visited a clock shop for two obscure (expensive) batteries. Tinkerbell’s light has returned.